President Donald Trump said on Friday that a U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopter was flying too high before it collided with an American Airlines-operated jet near Washington on Wednesday evening in the worst U.S. aviation disaster in decades.
In a post on Truth Social, Trump wrote that the Army “helicopter was flying too high, by a lot” and “was far above the 200-foot limit,” referring to the maximum altitude those helicopter flights can go.
“That’s not really too complicated to understand, is it?” he then asked. The crash remains under investigation by the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board, which has not yet revealed a cause.
In the collision and crash, 60 passengers and four crew members on the flight died, while three people on the Black Hawk died, officials and Trump have said. On Thursday morning, the head of Washington’s fire department said that the effort turned from search-and-rescue to the recovery of bodies.
The plane, American Eagle Flight No. 5342, a regional jet operated by American Airlines, was traveling from Wichita, Kansas, to Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport. The collision with the Army helicopter occurred around 9 p.m. ET while the plane was approaching the runway over the Potomac River, federal officials said.
A livestream camera located at Washington’s Kennedy Center showed the moment the two aircraft collided, showing an explosion in the area of the Potomac River.
The crash victims included people from Russia, China, Germany, and the Philippines, as well as young figure skaters and people from Kansas, the state from which the passenger flight took off, officials have said.
Wednesday’s incident marks the deadliest aviation-related crash since November 2001, when an American Airlines flight crashed into a residential area of Belle Harbor, New York, just after takeoff, killing all 260 people onboard.
U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said on Thursday that there may have been an elevation issue with the Black Hawk, adding that investigators are looking into the matter.
However, both Hegseth and the Army have said the three-member crew of soldiers on the Black Hawk were relatively experienced. The Army said the instructor pilot, who was the designated pilot in command, had 1,000 flying hours, while the other pilot had about 500 hours of flying.
American Airlines CEO Robert Isom said the pilot of the American Eagle Flight 5342 had about six years of flying experience. That jet was operated by PSA Airlines, a regional subsidiary, he said.
Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) questioned the safety of military and commercial flights separated by as little as 350 feet vertically and horizontally. She also urged the government to reconsider allowing so many helicopter flights next to such a busy airport.
But U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said Thursday in a news conference that flight paths of the two aircraft were not unusual for the area and that both the helicopter and the airplane had been flying standard flight patterns.
In a series of posts on X, Duffy wrote that the families of the victims should be assured because he will attempt to “find answers to how this happened” and said he has “directed every relevant agency to immediately investigate what went wrong” and “will not tolerate delays or bureaucratic excuses.”
